Phaedrus
contributor: Eric Lease Morgan (Infomotions, Inc.)
creator: Plato
date: 0000-00-00
extent: 125476
format: text/plain
language: en
publisher: Eris Etext Project
rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/
source: 15
subject: phaedr
subject: lover
subject: soul
subject: art
subject: love
subject: whither
subject: sitting
subject: morning
subject: plato
subject: phaedrus
subject: western
subject: philosophy
type: text
local mirror: plato-phaedrus-351.txt
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sort title: Phaedrus
full text: 360 BC PHAEDRUS by Plato translated by Benjamin Jowett PHAEDRUS PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: SOCRATES; PHAEDRUS. Scene: Under a plane-tree, by the banks of the Ilissus. Socrates. My dear Phaedrus, whence come you, and whither are you going? Phaedrus. I come from Lysias the son of Cephalus, and I am going to take a walk outside the wall, for I have been sitting with him the whole morning; and our common friend Acumenus tells me that it is much more refreshing to walk in the open air than to be shut up in a cloister. Soc. There he is right. Lysias then, I suppose, was in the town? Phaedr. Yes, he was staying with Epicrates, here at the house of Morychus; that house which is near the temple of Olympian Zeus. Soc. And how did he entertain you? Can I be wrong in supposing that Lysias gave you a feast of discourse? Phaedr. You shall hear, if you can spare time to accompany me. Soc. And should I not deem the conversation of you and Lysias "a thing of higher import," as I may say in the words of Pindar, "than any business"? Phaedr. Will you go on? Soc. And will you go on with the narration? Phaedr. My tale, Socrates, is one of your sort, for love was the theme which occupied us -love after a fashion: Lysias has been writing about a fair youth who was being tempted, but not by a lover; and this was the point: he ingeniously proved that the non-lover should be accepted rather than the lover. Soc. O that is noble of him! I wish that he would say the poor man rather than the rich, and the old man rather than the young one; then he would meet the case of me and of many a man; his words would be quite refreshing, and he would be a public benefactor. For my part, I do so long to hear his speech, that if you walk all the way to Megara, and when you have reached the wall come back, as Herodicus recommends, without going in, I will keep you company. Phaedr. What do you mean, my good Socrates? How can you imagine that my unpractised memory can do justice to an elaborate work, which the gr…